Sunday, March 21, 2010

This Generation's Stamp Act

In March of 1765, the British Parliament passed the now infamous Stamp Act. They did this to help offset the costs of having their troops stationed in America. More accurately, King George DEMANDED that Parliament pass the act because HE was having to pay to keep the increasingly rebellious Americans in line.

This wasn't the first thing King George had done to anger the colonists. But it was the last straw for many Americans. For the first time in 150 years, colonists would now have to pay a direct tax to England. The power to lay a DIRECT tax on a good or service opened the floodgates to endless controls and subjugations.

Does this sound a little familiar?

The parallel continues. In May of 1765, Patrick Henry presented the Virginia Resolutions to the House of Burgesses suggesting that only Virginia can tax its people. He also proclaimed, "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Virginia is now the first state to pass the Health Care Freedom act, declaring it unconstitutional for the federal government to compel Virginia's citizens to purchase health insurance or participate in any health care system against their wills. Thirty seven other states are preparing to do the same.

In July 1765, the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization opposed to the Stamp Act, is formed in a number of colonial towns. Its members use violence and intimidation to eventually force all of the British stamp agents to resign and also stop many American merchants from ordering British trade goods.

I can only imagine that, by all the signs appearing on just Facebook, that such organizations are already in formation to stand in opposition to this president and his tyrannical policies. May God have mercy upon us.

In October, the Stamp Act Congress convenes in New York City, with representatives from nine of the colonies. The Congress prepares a resolution to be sent to King George III and the English Parliament. The petition requests the repeal of the Stamp Act and the Acts of 1764. The petition asserts that only colonial legislatures can tax colonial residents and that taxation without representation violates the colonists' basic civil rights.

I can easily see representatives from several of our states coming together to formulate legal and civil means of opposing this bill and any and all other laws that violate state sovereignty and Constitutional rights of individuals. Every legal remedy must be pursued.

History continues:

On November 1, 1765, most daily business and legal transactions in the colonies cease as the Stamp Act goes into effect with nearly all of the colonists refusing to use the stamps. In New York City, violence breaks out as a mob burns the royal governor in effigy, harasses British troops, then loots houses.

What would happen, my friends, if millions upon millions of Americans, led by their state legislatures, refused to obey this law?

A year after first signing the Stamp Act into law, King George repeals the law. And, although there is some celebration and a relaxation of rebellion against the king, at the same time as repealing the Stamp Act, Parliament also passes the Declaratory Act stating that the British government has total power to legislate any laws governing the American colonies in all cases whatsoever. And a year later passes a series of new taxes through the Townshend Act. And although the Townshend Act is repealed three years later, in 1770, the tide had turned. The Colonists were certain that a tyrannical king would never afford them freedom.

And now, for the first time in 234 years of United States history, our own Congress has imposed a mandate upon the people of this country to do something in order to exercise their fundamental rights. Or is it the first time?

How many of you believe that in order to exercise your fundamental right to work for compensation you have to have a Social Security number? How many of you can identify that the very fact that the federal government can, AND WILL, prosecute you or me if we do not pay a tax for the RIGHT to extend labor for a fee is no different that what Congress imposed upon us tonight?

How many of you understand that the legal definition of a "license" is simply an authority or permission to do what is otherwise wrongful or illegal?

In that light, ask yourself this: why do you or I need a "license" to get married? Or to use your own private property to travel the public roads for personal (NOT COMMERCIAL) purposes? Why do you need the government to tell you its okay to hunt or fish on your OWN LAND?

I could go on, but suffice it to say, that today is not the first time in Congressional history that Progressives have imposed a rule of law upon us whereby we must depend upon THEM for our rights...to both confer upon us and to defend them.

In the dark of night, during the Christmas season of 1913, a very progressive leaning Congress imposed upon US a direct tax for the first time...the very thing our forefathers thought to be the final straw. At the same time they also began the all out assault on America and our Constitution with the imposition of the Federal Reserve.

So, my fellow Americans, do NOT act like this is the beginning of the end of the American we were given by our forefathers. We have been asleep for the better part of a hundred years. We must now not only rise up and fight for our liberty and country, but we must return to the faith of our fathers and pray that it is not too late.

Why do I say we must return to faith? Because, my dear friends, if our rights were not conferred upon us by our Creator, as our Founders have so eloquently said, then we must defer to the Progressives who would have us believe that those rights are bestowed upon us by government itself...a government of flawed, corrupt men/women.

I am no more calling for a theocracy than our forefathers were. This was supposed to be a constitutional republic based upon certain self-evident truths, namely that all men are CREATED equal (not, as the Progressives would have us believe, destined to all BE equal at all times), that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights...

Please allow me to close this rather long blog by explaining what those words mean.

The term "endowed" compels the notion that we are born with these rights. That the very act of being born imbues us with these characteristics.

It is also important that we must also accept that such rights are endowed to us by a Creator. No one, not a single founding father, nor I, am compelling you to devote yourself to a life of faith in that Creator. In so freeing you from any compulsion to obey or follow God in any way, shape or form it is not undeserving to accept that even you, as a non-follower, were also endowed with these same rights. As soon as you reject the source of these rights, then you are forced to seek out an alternate source of them...a source greater and surely less corrupt than man.

The term "unalienable" is by far the most important term here. It means, incapable of being repudiated (rejected, DEEMED untrue or illegitimate) or transferred to another. No, Congress has no right to bypass our rights or take them for their own.

It is time to return to the roots of all that WE deem honorable, true and good. Congress and this president have no authority to confiscate with our rights and liberties and if we must, we shall devote ourselves wholly to making sure that they are removed from a position whereby they can repudiate our fundamental rights.